11- year-old, Matthew
Smith became Britain’s youngest ever orchestra conductor. He led a 75-strong
orchestra through a faultless rendition of the overture to Johann Strauss II’s
Die Fledermaus. The Legend in making conducted the nine-minute piece entirely
from memory and wasn’t fazed by the 1,300 crowd at the Royal Concert Hall in
Nottingham. His mum, Beverlyn Riley, 40, was all smiles as she watched her son.

His genius was unlocked
four years ago when he saw two violinists performing at the Pentecostal church
he attends with his mother and told her that he wanted to be ‘just like them’.
Mrs Riley who works as a catering assistant at Nottingham High School,
approached the school’s senior string teacher Derek Williams who set Matthew up
with an old violin.

Instinctively, Matthew placed his fingers in the
correct place on the instrument and a star was born. Mr Williams said that
Matthew had ‘music coming out of his pores’. He said the boy had ‘an inherent
natural ability the like of which I have not seen for 30 years’.

Mrs Riley, who is divorced from Matthew’s father
Cordova Smith and has since remarried, said that she had no idea where Matthew
gets his musical ability from, although his father does play the saxophone.